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American clothing brand Woolrich John Rich & Bros has launched two new versions of its Arctic Parka, made from 100 per cent Merino wool and resistant to both wind and water.
The Woolrich John Rich & Bros brand having presence across Europe and Japan, for this year’s European Autumn/Winter season, launched two new versions of its famous Arctic Parka – the Polar Parka and the Mackinaw Parka – both made with Loro Piana’s 100 per cent Merino wool Storm System fabric. With support from The Woolmark Company, the company has also undertaken an advertising campaign across Europe, promoting the Merino outerwear in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France, the UK and the Netherlands.
No Finer Feeling branding is establishing Merino as the fabric of choice for fine, contemporary apparel. The initiative is helping The Woolmark Company to promote the natural benefits of Merino wool to international consumers through collaborating commercial partners.
The Lora Piana Storm System fabric consists of a double barrier fabric. Firstly, a water repellent Rain System treatment ensures that drops of water slide on the outer surface of the fabric, enhancing its water repellency and protecting it against dust, dirt and liquid stains. Secondly, a thin and extremely light microporous absorbent membrane, applied to the back of the fabric, is windproof and allows the skin to breathe.
www.woolrich.com
"A coalition of Cambodian unions are joining together to demand that the brands immediately ensure a minimum wage of $177 is paid in their Cambodian suppliers and negotiate directly with Cambodian unions a binding agreement to achieve living wages, decent purchasing practices, stable employment, and union rights for the long-term. They have also urged the government to refrain from passing the law until genuine consultation has taken place with independent unions."
On International Human Rights Day, labour network Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) joined more than 25 countries in a global call on major brands such as H&M, GAP, Levi's and Inditex to make sure Cambodian workers receive $177 as a first step towards a living wage. In addition, the organization has pledged its support to the Cambodian union coalition to make sure a controversial Trade Union Law will not be passed before genuine and inclusive consultation with civil society and trade unions is guaranteed by the government of Cambodia.
IndustriALL, one of the largest federations of trade unions around the world, recently said that it was disappointed with the group of major international brands that appear to have largely ignored a pledge made last year to help Cambodian factories pay their workers a higher minimum wage.
Fight for Cambodian workers’ rights intensifies
In September 2014, IndustriALL appreciated the announcement made by eight brands to raise the prices they paid to Cambodian factories for their garment orders so that the factories could in turn pay higher wages to its workers. The Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) also welcomed the move. Even the government raised the garment sector’s monthly minimum wage twice since then, first from $100 to $128 and then to $140.
According to Clean Clothes Campaign, the Labour Advisory Council (LAC), voted to approve a new minimum wage of $140, to be implemented in January 2016 for Cambodia’s 700,000 garment workers, despite objections from a number of unions. This insufficient $12 wage increase is a slap in the face of workers who have been organising for over a year to demand a fair minimum wage of $177, it said.
Amid all these developments, the eight brands appear not to have raised their prices, said IndustriALL. Among the brands that joined the pledge were Swedish clothing giant H&M, which places more orders in Cambodia than any other buyer. It was joined by C&A, Inditex, New Look, Next, the N Brown Group, Primark and Tchibo.
In September, GMAC said 99.4 per cent of the member factories it surveyed said that they were receiving the same prices from their buyers as the year before, sometimes even less. It said a third of the factories that responded claimed to be getting up to 10 per cent less. Now Clean Clothes Campaign has decided to organise demonstrations in front H&M, Adidas and other stores in the US, Europe and Asia. In Cambodia, thousands of workers from a coalition of eight unions will rally the streets in three provinces, wearing stickers saying: ‘We need a living wage!’
Workers fainting over fashion
Cambodia recently saw another wave of mass fainting in garment factories. In August 2015, nearly 400 workers fainted in four factories across Cambodia. On July 2, 2015 alone, 38 workers lost consciousness in a factory in Phnom Penh. In 2014, the Ministry of Labor recorded that more than 1,800 workers collapsed in 24 factories. Mass fainting has been linked to malnutrition, high targets and long working hours, as a consequence of low wages and the need for workers to survive.
A coalition of Cambodian unions are joining together to demand that the brands immediately ensure a minimum wage of $177 is paid in their Cambodian suppliers and negotiate directly with Cambodian unions a binding agreement to achieve living wages, decent purchasing practices, stable employment, and union rights for the long-term. They have also urged the government to refrain from passing the law until genuine consultation has taken place with independent unions.
Athit Kong, Vice President of C.CAWDU, an independent union in Cambodia, says “After years of campaigning, it is clear that the only way Cambodian workers will get a decent wage they can live on, is collective bargaining between brands, as the principle employers, and the garment unions. A minimum wage of $140, as its set now, is like throwing bread crumbs at your impoverished workers. To simply survive, we need $177 as a very first basic step.”
Clean Clothes Campaign has now urged brands to make sure $177 is paid immediately to the workers and genuine consultation takes places between the coalition of independent unions and the government regarding the Trade Union Law.
Cleanclothes.org www.industriall-union,org
Invista has announced that its next generation of fashionable shapewear fabrics – the cooling technology by Lycra Beauty brand – will be presented by Eurovet’s Designer of the Year 2016, Willy Herman from Austria.
Launched last September at Interfilière New York, Willy Herman is the first mill in Europe to present a commercially available cooling technology by Lycra Beauty brand qualified fabric collection at Interfilière Paris. According to Invista, cooling technology by Lycra Beauty brand was designed in response to consumer needs for increased sophistication and comfort performance in the shapewear category. Today’s shapewear needs to be fashionable, comfortable and high-performing, Invista says, adding that, to design shaping garments that match these increasing consumer needs, the selection of the right fabric is critical.
Especially for moisture management there is a large gap between the current shapewear offering in the market and what women want – although moisture management is extremely important for comfort, Invista explains. Consumer research conducted by Invista indicated that 69 per cent of female consumers find moisture management in shapewear to be extremely or very important, with only 42 per cent satisfied. To close this gap, Invista developed the Lycra Beauty Cooling technology. The secret of this innovation is the company’s Coolmax technology featuring fibres with an engineered cross-section enabling moisture to reach the fabric’s outer surface where it evaporates quickly.
www.invista.com
The Annual Conference on Social Responsibility of Chinese Textile and Apparel Industry (CTAI) and the 10th Anniversary Event for Social Responsibility Practice of China National Textile and Apparel Council (CNTAC) was held recently in Beijing. Aptly themed ‘Pioneering in a decade and innovating for the future" the conference aimed to review the CTAI’s social responsibility practice in the past decade (2005-2015). It also focused on stimulating green manufacturing, sustainable development of a global textile supply chain, improve communications between interested parties and an overview of the development roadmap of CTAI over the next decade.
During the 13th Five Year Plan (2016-2020), the CATI is confronted with a variety of expansion plans, innovation levels and building a reliable system. CATI is working towards upgrading investment and trade structure, brace up market share in developed countries and explore markets in burgeoning economies as recovery rate is slow, while the consumption demands of emerging economies need other outlets.
CATI’s initiative to improve its international competitive advantage has been facilitated by the "Belt and Road" initiative, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei synergetic development, and the Yangtze River Economic Zone. This would assist CATI’s internationalisation of industrial distribution through a global chain. Nevertheless, the urgency for CATI to restore social risk consciousness and responsibility consciousness cannot be overlooked.
As a national organisation, CNTAC indicated the desire to consider social responsibility requirements of China's major trade partners and their investment in Chinese companies located in other countries. The organisation has a fundamental notion to have a platform of successful companies, yet taking social responsibility into account that triggers sustainable development of Chinese companies operating overseas.
Over the first nine months from February 1 to October 31, 2015– Inditex Group's net sales increased 16 percent from a year earlier to €14.74billion. In constant currency terms, sales growth was 15 percent, with solid growth in like-for-like store sales. Net profit was €2.02billion, up 20 per cent over the same period the previous year.
This growth, coupled with the group's investments, has enabled Inditex to generate 13,079 new jobs worldwide over the past 12 months, of which 3,291 were in Spain. All manufacturing, logistics, brand and subsidiary employees worldwide with more than two years' service will benefit from a profit-share plan for 2015-2016. The Group will award these beneficiaries 10 per cent of the year-on-year growth in profit attributable to the parent company.
The Group continues with the global expansion of its fully integrated store and online sales platform. Over the first nine months of 2015 it opened 230 stores in 48 markets. In terms of online launches over the period, Zara extended its online presence to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao. Inditex also launched online operations in the southern hemisphere with the launch of Zarahome.com in Australia. Zara Home also launched online in Japan. Over the period, Uterqüe also launched online in Sweden and Denmark; Zara Home in Japan, and Pull&Bear, Massimo Dutti, Stradivarius and Oysho in China.
Inditex opened physical stores in all geographical areas, which included highly relevant stores for all the brands. Europe saw a net increase of 109 stores over the period, the Americas 47, and Asia and the rest of the world 74 to bring the Group's total number of stores to 6,913. As of October 31, 2015, the Group was present in 88 markets, with online operations in 28 of these.
Adidas, one of the country’s biggest garment buyers, has indicated that it plans to expand its production in Cambodia over the next five years as part of its plans to shift from China to lower-cost producers in Southeast Asia. During an investors workshop last week, the German sportswear giant’s head of sourcing, John McNamara, announced plans to increase orders from Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia and Vietnam over the next half-decade to escape rapidly rising labour costs in China.
Adidas is said to be looking at increasing its global share of sourcing from Cambodia by 4 per cent by the end of the decade. From 16 per cent imports in 2014, the company expects to increase it to 20 per cent by 2020. The company sources from 24 of Cambodia’s 500-odd exporting garment factories, including Grand Twins International, one of only three firms listed on the country’s fledgling stock exchange.
Meanwhile the country’s workers are grappling with low wages. IndustriALL continues to work with the brands sourcing from Cambodia towards industry level collective bargaining in order to improve wage conditions. Its motive is to make sure that the garment brands that source from Cambodian factories, take their share of responsibility for ensuring that garment workers earn a living wage.
www.adidas.com
Cotton crop spread over three lakh hectares has been damaged in Punjab due to whitefly infestation, the government said on Tuesday. During the Kharif season this year, whitefly infestation was reported in cotton crop in Punjab and Haryana.
The Punjab government has reported damage to cotton crop in 3.32 lakh hectares, especially in eight cotton growing districts of Fazilka, Bhatinda, Mansa, Shri Muktsar Sahib, Sangrur, Barnala, Faridkot and Moga, agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh said during Question Hour. He said the Haryana government has ordered a special ‘gridawari’ (record of land cultivation) to assess the losses in cotton due to whitefly attack. The two governments have so far not submitted memorandum of financial assistance under National Disaster Response Fund, Singh said.
His deputy in the ministry Sanjeev Balyan said the central government monitored the pest situation in the country and sends advisories to the states for effective action. Experts are also sent for advising the government and the farming community to tackle pests as they can cause serious damage to crops, he added.
Erratic weather played a crucial role in the growth of the whitefly. If the temperature had been lower in the winter, it would have kept the incidence down, as ground frost helps to break the whitefly’s life cycle. Punjab has announced a relief package of Rs 600 crores for farmers affected but farmers say this would amount to about Rs 8,000 an acre, against their actual cost of Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 an acre.
American Textile Recycling Service (ATRS), textile recycler and a leader in clothing donation programs and services has announced the acquisition of a clothing and shoe collection facility in Indianapolis. The Muncie-based donation bin operation was formerly owned and operated by Retail Management Specialists of Eastern Missouri, LLC which operates Red Racks and Team Thrift stores in Colorado, Kansas, Missouri and Utah.
The 21,000 sq. ft. Indianapolis facility has operated for two years and supports the Indiana State Department of Disabled American Veterans through a clothing and shoe donation fundraising program. The newly acquired facility operated 144 bins throughout the Anderson, Marion, Muncie, and Indianapolis areas, all collecting gently used, unwanted clothing donations on behalf of DAV Indiana.
ATRS is on a fast growth track to be nationwide by 2025 and provides free textile recycling solutions in 10 states and 28 metropolitan areas across the country. Partnerships with municipalities, property management companies like Brixmor and Simon, schools, churches and local retailers create high traffic destination locations for families and local residents to drop off and properly dispose of gently used, out of season, unneeded clothing, shoes, toys and household textiles.
Atrscorp.com
Textile conglomerate Arvind has been honoured with the National Energy Conservation Award 2015 in textiles category. The company has bagged the award for second year in a row on account of energy savings achieved through various initiatives by its unit situated at Santej in Gujarat.
The Ministry of Power gives out 'National Energy Conservation Award' on National Energy Conservation Day celebrated annually on December 14. The award was conferred for reducing 13 per cent consumption in thermal energy and 10 per cent reduction in specific consumption in electrical energy compared to the last financial year.
The various initiatives to conserve energy included replacement of TFL with energy efficient LED lighting, installation of energy efficient compressors, VFDs in various machines, using day lights in production halls and replacement of existing pumps with energy efficient pumps. The thermal energy savings where achieved by Economizers in boilers, trap replacement, thermal insulations, heat recovery from hot effluent, the company said.
www.arvind.com
Lectra, the world leader in integrated technology solutions dedicated to industries using soft materials—fabrics, leather, technical textiles and composite materials has appointed Burak Susoy as Director, Lectra Turkey and the Middle East.
Fashion and automotive are two important markets for Lectra in Turkey and the Middle East, a region that has major assets despite an uncertain context. Lectra is increasing investment in these countries because it believes in local companies’ potential for success.
Particularly in Turkey, Lectra’s premium positioning aligns with its customers and their expectations. Many of these manufacturers are aiming upmarket, striving to reach a new level of excellence or developing their own brands. Their activity now covers the whole value chain, specifically design and product development. Product lifecycle management solutions, such as Lectra Fashion PLM, fit perfectly within the strategic plans of a growing number of Turkish companies.
Burak Susoy started his career in 1995 at Ricoh’s Turkish distributor. He joined Lectra Turkey as a sales manager in 1999. He was later appointed as country sales director and general manager of Lectra’s Turkish subsidiary. Burak Susoy served as the country manager for Dassault Systèmes in Turkey from 2012 to September 2015.
www.lectra.com
